I've spoken before about the value of brand - this postis a good example. And I wanted to follow up with a few more thoughts,and an important shift in how Sun (NASDAQ:SUNW) presents itself to theworld - and more importantly, how the world now presents itself to Sun.
Sun is blessed to have built two of the best known brands onthe internet. The Java brand, and OpenOffice (and its cousin,StarOffice).
Presumably, you saw the relationship we just announced with 
Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), in which they'll be distributing StarOffice for free as a part of their Google Pack offerings - to put this in context, we're now distributing multiple millions of copies of OpenOffice every week(and that's before you count mirror distribution sites). The combinedvolumes of StarOffice and OpenOffice generate a user and developercommunity now accelerating well past a hundred million users - acrossdeveloping economies, developing companies, and across Windows,Solaris, Linux and the Mac OS. As a software product and a brand (allend user software is ultimately both, after all), growing distributiondrives opportunity and awareness for everyone involved - for theOpenOffice/StarOffice user and developer community, and as its shepherdon the network, for Sun.
WhereverOpenOffice and StarOffice travel, more users know and trust Sun -what's that brand or awareness worth, especially among tomorrow'sdecision makers? It's hard to know exactly, but I'd bet more peopleknow Sun via OpenOffice than know us through datatcenters. That's anastonishing assertion, but with the internet now reaching billions ofend users, the number of consumers on the internet dwarfs the number ofIT professionals. The numbers are staggering.
But with that said, compared to the Java platform, office productivity is relatively esoteric stuff.
Because Java touches nearly everyone - everyone - whotouches the internet. Hundreds of millions of users see Java, and itsubiquitous logo, every day. On PC's, mobile phones, game consoles - youname it, wherever the network travels, the odds are good Java'spowering a portion of the experience.
What's that distribution and awareness worth to us? It's hardto say - brands, like employees, aren't expenses, they're investments.Measuring their value is more art than science. But there's no doubt inmy mind more people know Java than Sun Microsystems. There's similarlyno doubt they know Java more than nearly any other brand on theinternet.
I know that sounds audacious, but wherever I travel in theworld, I'm reminded of just how broad the opportunity has become, andhow pervasively the technology and brand have been deployed. Java trulyis everywhere.
Ask a teenager if they know Java, and they'll point to theirfavorite mobile applications, the video uploader for their socialnetwork, or their game console. As for working professionals, I haddinner with a financial analyst a few months ago who said he saw theJava launch experience "a few times a day" when accessing intranetapplications - as did tens of thousandsof his fellow employees. Daily. Global companies like Google and eBay(and Vodafone and Citigroup) are built on Java, every major PCmanufacturer bundles Java upon shipment, as does every mobile phonemanufacturer, and tens of millions of developers touch it every day inthe world's IT shops. Students learn it to get college credits forcomputer science, and there are more Java courses on universitycampuses than we ever imagined. Wherever it goes, Java brings limitlessopportunity - to Sun, and to our partners that develop, use or deployit.
Sowhat's that awareness worth? Ask the question a different way - if wewanted to buy that exposure, to touch tens if not hundreds of millionsof consumers every single day of the year, across nearly everycontinent, industry, geography and demographic - what would it cost us?(If you're in the industry, just do the CPM calculus - the Java launchexperience is one of the most pervasively viewed exposures on earth.)
As I said, the number of people who know Java swamps the numberof people who know Sun. Or SUNW, the symbol under which SunMicrosystems, Inc. equity is traded on the NASDAQ stock exchange. SUNWcertainly has some nostalgic value - it stands for "Stanford UniversityNetwork Workstation," and heralds back to Sun's cherished roots (inacademia). Granted, lots of folks on Wall Street know SUNW, given itsstatus as among the most highly traded stocks in the world (the SUNWsymbol shows up daily in the listings of most highly tradedsecurities).
But SUNW represents the past, and its not without a nostalgic nod that we've decided to look ahead.
JAVA is a technology whose value is near infinite to theinternet, and a brand that's inseparably a part of Sun (and ourprofitability). And so next week, we're going to embrace that realityby changing our trading symbol, from SUNW to JAVA. This is a big changefor us, capitalizing on the extraordinary affinity our teams haveinvested to build, introducing Sun to new investors, developers andconsumers. Most know Java, few know Sun - we can bring the two one stepcloser.
To be very clear, this isn't about changing the company name orfocus - we are Sun, we are a systems company, and we will always be aderivative of the students that created us, Stanford University Networkis here to stay. But we are no longer simply a workstation company, nora company whose products can be limited by one category - and Java doesa better job of capturing exactly that sentiment than any other fourletter symbol. Java means limitless opportunity - for our software,systems, storage, service and microelectronics businesses. And for theopen source communities we shepherd. What a perfect ticker.
And if you wondered why we picked eight strokes for the Java logo, now you know one reason...
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